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March 2, 2009 - Rush Limbaugh Program
37:07
March 2, 2009, Monday, Hour #2
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And we're back.
Great to have you with us, ladies and gentlemen, Rush Limbaugh, on the nation's most listened to radio program, a program that meets and surpasses all audience expectations.
Every day.
Telephone number if you want to join us, 800-282-2882, and the email address, L Rushbow at EIBNet.com.
There is more in that Charles Babington story at AP.
And rather than have me tell you, since some of you wish to doubt me, uh, and I'm, by the way, when I say some of you, we we in this audience understand there are probably a whole lot of new people tuning in today, and and uh I realize some of you have had a lot of skepticism about me.
You may be now a little bit more curious because of the speech, which we're gonna get to in just a moment.
I've been talked into replaying parts of the speech.
For those of you new to this program, something you must understand is I really don't like talking about myself.
And I always move forward.
I always try to what happened yesterday happened yesterday.
But my staff and my email is overwhelming.
Why aren't you talking about the speech?
Well, the speech was the speech and it's out there.
But I will relent.
If the public demand is that I replay elements of my speech and we talk about it, so be it.
We will do so in just a second, but want to share with you one more passage from the Charlie Babington AP piece, the analysis piece, in which he says the Republicans ought not try to win, because if they win in battling Obama, they might lose.
Which tells me that Babington thinks the American people are a bunch of uneducated sheep who actually want to see the United States economy continue to decline.
And I, ladies and gentlemen, refuse to believe that that's the mindset of the American people.
Charlie Babington, AP, reported on the actual agenda behind Obama's budget.
He says Obama's proposals are this quote.
An interrelated plan to undo major elements of President Reagan's conservative movement.
Obama admits that his, by the way, doing this program without a teleprompter.
I just saw Obama is happening right now, introducing Kathleen Sibelius as the new Tom Dashell, uh Secretary of Health and Human Service, needed a teleprompter to introduce a cabinet appointee.
No teleprompter here, folks, and no teleprompter Saturday in Washington for my speech.
Obama admits his budget is an attempt to reshape the foundations of our country, just as I said Saturday.
He calls his plan a threat to the status quo in Washington.
He wants to undo major elements of President Reagan's conservative movement.
Precisely that.
That's why I am being targeted, because I represent it.
Sad to say, but I am the most prominent voice for conservatism in America today.
I don't mind being the prominent voice, but it's a shame that my political party wants to throw it overboard.
So many people who campaigned for office and got elected on it are now wimping out in our party out of fear.
Fear born of mainstream media criticism, fear born of not being critical of somebody because of the color of their skin.
Or just plain fear for whatever reason.
And so the effort to marginalize me and to uh impugn me, mischaracterize me, since I represent the most prominent national voice on conservatism is the explanation for why they're doing it.
They want to wipe out conservatism.
Conservatism is the antithesis of what Obama and his people believe in.
Conservatism works.
Conservatism is the foundation of our country.
I opened a speech.
I'll tell you when I was driving into town, Saturday afternoon after landing at Dulles, I'm driving in, and uh I realize that Fox, I didn't know that CNN was also going to televise it.
I realized that Fox and C-Span are going to televise this speech.
Oh, here's another thing.
It's supposed to be 30 minutes.
Five to five thirty.
Well, they were running ahead.
they sent me out there at 445, and at the um at the 30 minute mark, this keep going, keep going, keep going.
So I kept going and going and going and going, and it went on for an hour and a half.
But driving in, I decided that, hey, this is my first address to the nation on television.
That this is going to be carried by two networks.
It was three, as it turned out, but I didn't know CNN.
So why not treat it as such?
Why not take the opportunity here and go beyond just the audience in the in the hotel ballroom at the omnichorum?
So I thought driving in, what would be a proper way to start?
I don't script my speeches either.
They're all winged, they're all ad-libbed.
As I said during the speech, I don't have to write down my core beliefs.
They're in my heart.
I don't have to write down my principles to remember them.
They're in my heart.
And my passionate belief in them allows my memory to recall them whenever I want.
So I don't need to write anything down.
And very few conservatives actually do write anything if it's in your heart.
We're not a series of calculations.
Conservatism is not a bunch of calculations how to fool people, how to persuade them, how to how to how to how to uh lie to them in order to make them think we're something that we're not.
So what it's not difficult for me to do that.
Why not start out knowing that there are going to be people watching this who um will not fit the profile of the uh uh passionate conservatives inside the ballroom at CPAC, why not tell them what conservative is?
Why not tell them what conservatism is based on?
I didn't want to give a classic Burkean or or or or Buckley definition of conservatism.
I wanted to give a definition of conservatism that addresses the criticism, the popular criticism of conservatism throughout the country from the left and the drive-by media, and this was it.
Let me tell you who we conservatives are.
We love people.
When we look out over the United States of America, when we are anywhere, when we see a group of people such as this or anywhere, we see Americans, we see human beings, we don't see groups, we don't see victims, we don't see people we want to exploit.
What we see, what we see is potential.
We do not look out across the country and see the average American, the person that makes this country work, we do not see that person with contempt.
We don't think that person doesn't have what it takes.
We believe that person can be the best he or she wants to be if certain things are just removed from their path, like onerous taxes, regulations, and too much government.
We want every American to be the best he or she chooses to be.
We recognize, we recognize that we are all individuals.
We love and revere our founding documents, the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.
We believe that the preamble of the Constitution contains an inarguable truth.
That we are all endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights, among them life.
Yes.
Thank you.
Liberty, freedom, and the pursuit of happiness.
Now those of you watching at home may wonder why this is being applauded.
We conservatives think all three are under assault.
Now the uh reason that they're under assault.
By the way, I misspoke.
I said it was a rhetorical error.
That's obviously from the preamble of declaration of independence.
The reason that we believe life, liberty, pursuit of happiness, are under assault.
Let me go through each one.
Life.
We are all endowed by our creator, certain inalienable rights.
Life.
There is a political party and a psychological slash ideological movement, which is hellbent on defining its political success by counting the number of abortions that happen.
I don't want to get into discussion of abortion here, Snurley.
Don't take me phone calls about that, but the point that we conservatives all understand is that we all are created and we have one life that's God given.
And it is a blessing that too many people take for granted by getting caught up in the day-to-day minutia of the difficulties of life.
But it is the most precious thing.
And to see it under assault, under the guise of, well, you know, it uh it's a disease, or the convenience or inconvenience to the living will be caused by birth, or we've heard arguments that uh we don't want people born into poverty.
Why who would want to be born into that?
Some of the greatest people in the world were born in poverty.
Most people are, in fact, born in poverty around the world.
So life is under assault, uh, both in the womb and uh when you get toward the end of life, the Democrats, the left always come up with the new organizations, assisted suicide, placing the power of determining who lives and who dies outside the family.
Liberty, freedom.
There's no question that liberty and freedom are under assault straight from Washington, D.C. and your state governments.
And the assault on freedom and liberty being led by the Obama administration to this day.
Virtually every aspect of Obama's plan results in less individual liberty.
The growth of government equals less liberty, more laws, more regulations.
We're going to get to the point where we're going to have to ask ourselves what we can say and can't say, where we can say it, where we can't say it.
What we can drive, what we can't drive, what kind of light bulbs we can have, and what kind of light bulbs we can't have.
What kind of toilet paper can we use?
How can we fuel and energy uh energize our homes?
All of these decisions will not be ours.
And the pursuit of happiness.
Interesting to find that in the Declaration of Independence.
Of all things, here are these people, founding fathers are trying to construct a reason to declare independence from the tyranny of King George.
Pursuit of happiness.
You see, tyranny, living under tyranny, does not promote happiness.
It doesn't even promote contentment.
Its hallmark is fear.
Our founding fathers did not want any fear among the people aimed at government.
They wanted government afraid of the people.
That's why there were accountabilities.
That's why that the Bill of Rights, the first Ten Amendments, the Constitution, that's why there are elections.
That's why there are checks and balances.
But as they look out across the country, and just use the last eight years for those of you who are tuning in now, maybe for the first time.
Ask yourselves, when's the last time you saw a happy Democrat, a happy liberal?
They're not happy.
Even liberal comedians are enraged and angry.
Their jokes are rooted in a rage and anger.
These are the people that wrote books and made movies about the assassination of George W. Bush and called them great literary and film works that we, even if we didn't agree with the premise, we must understand the art that went into it, the art that was behind it.
But we don't find happiness on the left.
And we don't have anybody on the left encouraging anybody else to be happy.
The leader of the Democrat Party, Barack Obama, every day makes statements that are designed to engage people in feelings of negativism and in some cases even panic.
Panic.
There's no inspiration.
There's no uplifting.
There is no hope.
It's just the opposite.
So that's why, in a very brief explanation, we fear.
And that's why I was applauded when I define conservatism as standing for life, liberty, pursuit of happiness.
People are applauding it because it's under assault from the Democrat Party, from the White House on down.
And we're not supposed to be happy until as much of our lives as possible is controlled by these people in Washington who ostensibly have our best interests at heart.
Yeah, maybe their intentions are good, but their results are abysmal.
Every government program designed to elevate achievement, happiness, prosperity for the poor and the downtrodden has only increased the numbers of poor, the feelings of misery, and by the way, anger.
How many Democrat voters are angry?
Some have been angry for 50 years over the same things.
And for 50 years, the Democrats have been promising to fix it.
We're gonna get even with those Republicans that are stealing your money.
We're gonna make sure the Republicans get out of your way.
We're gonna make sure there's no discrimination against you.
And yet, nothing changes.
Their grievances have not changed in 50 years.
The Democrat Party has utterly failed to deliver on their promises to people.
The Democrat Party has succeeded in expanding misery, trying to spread as much possible.
The Democrat Party is doing everything it can to create crisis mentality on a daily basis.
Angst, anger, and frustration.
So there is no pursuit of happiness with these people.
Life, leave it up to them, and it's a crapshoot.
Liberty, they're trying to stamp out as much of it as possible.
Just examine your daily life.
And you'll understand it.
And by the way, your freedom, as far as you're concerned, might not be directly impacted, although it is, but you may not really feel it.
But I'm sure you can notice people in your neighborhood.
Ah, sorry, community is a preferred word now, uh, in your state or around the country.
Property owners are told what they can and can't do with their land because of a tiny little stale darter or some such thing.
Just imagine it happening to you one day, because if nobody stops it when it's happening to others, it's eventually going to get to everybody.
Brief time out.
More from the speech, and eventually your phone calls on it right after this.
Ladies and gentlemen, the Dow Jones Industrial Average is tanking even further, now down 255.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeting, Nasdaq's down 47 to 50.
While the President of the United States with a teleprompter introduces Kathleen Sabilius, a governor of Kansas, as the new Health and Human Services Director, Secretary, remember Kathleen Sabilis at one point was refusing to send out money that Kansas taxpayers had overpaid.
She was withholding taxpayer refund checks.
And now she's been appointed to serve in the Obama cabinet.
So while the economy and the stock market are tanking, Obama has plucked a governor from Kansas who sat on Kansas taxpayers' money and refused to send them their refunds.
This is a man who's really for economic recovery, right?
And then I saw a little blurb.
The White House is now shifting focus to health care to speed up economic recovery.
Okay, I want to talk to you who are out of work.
You don't have a job.
The people that might hire you are being portrayed as the enemy by Barack Obama.
The people that might hire you have just heard their taxes are going to be raised considerably.
The people that might hire you see the economy plunging, the stock market failing, and they don't feel like investing in their business right now because there are fewer customers.
And so Barack Obama says, Yeah, well, we're gonna fix this.
We're gonna ramp up our health care reforms.
That will spur the economy.
Now, those of you out of work, I want you to seriously Ask yourselves, how is something that's going to take a year or two gonna get you a job tomorrow or next week or next month?
I don't think Obama really cares right now whether you get your job back anytime soon.
The more Obama can make you believe that America as founded fails.
You know if there's anybody who's actually after failure.
You want you want me to ramp this up?
You want me to ramp this up, snurdly?
If there's anybody who wants America as it was founded to fail, it's Barack Obama.
We are looking at America failing right in front of our eyes.
America is failing right in front of our eyes.
You are watching America fail every day.
When you hear about more people losing their jobs, when you hear about the stock market plummeting even further, when you hear about taxes being raised on the people who will be responsible for leading this recovery by offering people jobs, when you see them refusing to do so, when you see them stepping out.
You're watching the United States of America and its economy fail.
And as you tune to the White House or turn to the White House and say, well, what's being done about this?
Well, we did our stimulus package, but I guess we need to spur it up.
We're gonna now get to work on health care.
Everything they're doing is not designed to get you a job.
It's designed the opposite.
It's designed to leave you just out there squirming and blaming Bush, blaming Republicans, blaming the way the country was founded, blaming capitalism while Obama goes on his merry way, expanding government at the expense of your freedom and your economic prosperity.
Back in a moment.
Back to the CPAC speech.
Saturday afternoon, the Omni Shorum Hotel, my first nationally televised address to the nation.
For those of you just tuning in on the Fox News Channel or C-SPAN, I am Rush Limbaugh, and I want everyone in this room and every one of you around the country to succeed.
I want anyone who believes in life, liberty, pursuit of happiness to succeed.
And I want any force, any person, any element of an overarching big government that would stop your success, I want that organization, that element, or that person to fail.
I want you to succeed.
Also, for those of you in the drive-by media watching, I have not needed a teleprompter for anything I've said.
Thank you.
And nor do any of us need a teleprompter because our beliefs are not the result of calculations and contrivances.
Our beliefs are not the result of a deranged psychology.
Our beliefs are our core.
Our beliefs are our hearts.
We don't have to make notes about what we believe.
We don't have to write down, oh geez, does I believe it do I believe.
We can tell people what we believe off the top of our heads, and we can do it with passion, and we can do it with clarity, and we can do it persuasively.
Some of us just haven't had the inspiration or motivation to do so in a number of years, but that's about to change.
Thank you.
It will change, ladies and gentlemen.
There's a lot of fear at the RNC.
Uh there's a lot of fear within the Republican Party, but that will change.
Uh we keep saying that the American people need leadership.
I keep saying the American people need leadership.
They just, or conservative Republicans, just get some leadership.
You know what?
You know who needs leadership?
The Republican National Committee and Michael Steele need a little leadership.
The Republicans in the Senate, the Republicans elected Republicans around the country.
They're the ones who need leadership.
We've been looking in the wrong areas for leadership.
Turns out we are the leaders.
We're gonna have to drag them kicking and screaming back to our core.
They're caught up in so much fear because of where they live and work in Washington, D.C. That's why I say it will change.
This fear that paralyzes the Republican Party will change.
A couple more sound bites in the speech, but first to the phones, Mike in New York City.
Hello, sir, glad you waited.
Nice to have you with us.
How are you doing, Rush?
Good.
I was uh listening to a local uh radio talk show this morning.
It's uh the Joe and Mika show, Joe Scarborough.
Oh yeah.
And uh he said he attended uh CPAC this weekend.
Yeah.
Uh he was talking about how well you did, but he got to the point where he was saying that he thought that this message of wanting Obama to fail was kind of going over the top a little bit that uh let me did Joe tell you what part of Obama's agenda he wants to succeed.
Is Joe in favor the tax increases?
Is Joe in favor of universal health care?
Is Joe in favor of universal education?
Is Joe in favor of cap and trade?
What did Joe tell you about the Obama agenda he wants to succeed?
Well, he didn't.
He uh he he does he did a lot like the rest of the media does.
He generalized the statement that you uh that you've made about his policies as a generalized statement that you want everything to fail.
Did you ask, did you call Joe?
Did he say did he say um how any of what he advocates today helped him get elected in nineteen ninety four to the House of Representatives?
I I spoke to Joe and I said uh and you know, addresses I said, I think you're missing the mark, Joe.
I think uh Rush doesn't want uh him to fail as a person.
He wants his policies to fail because the policies are work taking us down the wrong road.
And uh I said, what would you rather do uh let his policies run the full term and prolong the suffering or try to do what we can to slow them down and cut the suffering short, and with that he paused and he said, I think you know you've got a point.
Well, good.
Maybe you made some headway.
I'm mystified.
You know, Joe Scarborough is not a dumb guy.
Um he got elected to Congress from Pensacola in uh 1994, part of the I mean, that was a revolution.
That that that was a revolution.
That was the contract with America days.
That was overthrow to Democrats.
That was getting rid of Fort Worthless Jim Wright.
I mean, that was that was an amazing period.
Joe typifies one of the things that's very frustrating to all of us.
And that there's a blueprint out there for success.
And so many of them seem to have forgotten it or now for some reason eschew it uh and think it's not applicable that uh somehow those strategies and core beliefs need to be moderated or modified to adapt to the uh current climb.
They do.
You know, I somebody somebody sent me a note this morning say, you know, we we need to come out here with a statement.
Uh we need we need to come out here with a with a with a statement that says we're we're we're all for solutions.
I said conservatism's the solution.
I I made the point in the speech on Saturday.
Our side is currently caught up in the in in the in the never-ending well, the bottomless pit well of arguing policy with the Democrats.
They advance their health care bill, they advanced their porculus bill, they advance the budget, and we start discussing it in terms of policy.
When it's a violation of our principles.
If we stand up for our principles, if we are governed by our principles, if we lead our lives by virtue of our principles, the policy takes care of itself.
You don't need a policy to come up with Walmart voters.
What is a Walmart voter anyway?
What is that?
What do you think is meant when people on our side say we've got to come up with a plan to go get the Walmart voter?
I assume the Walmart voter the way they're thinking is a lower middle class poor person who goes to Walmart because he can't go anywhere else, because prices elsewhere are too high, and somehow we've got to and and that person needs government help in order to live, so we need to come up with a way to tell that person that we don't hate government.
Well my reaction to that as a conservative and as an American is that's an American citizen first.
It's a human being.
It's a human being that's shopping at Walmart.
But as that human being shops at Walmart, I'm sure that human being hopes to improve his and his family's lot in life, or her and her family's lot in life.
Everybody in this country, it's always been about improving your standard of living.
And this has been the one country in the world where that has been the promise.
If there was ever an American dream, it was that.
That you had an opportunity every year with your own ambition, your own hard work, your own desire, your own passion to improve your life.
And by doing so, you improve the lives of all your members, your family, and your neighborhood and your community at the same time.
So why not look at a Walmart voter as somebody who just wants a better life?
And why not look at a Walmart and voter and say you have what it takes?
You are an American.
You have ample opportunity.
You have more opportunity than you know.
You do not need to become a ward of the state in order to have more than what you can buy at Walmart.
And what's standing in your way, Walmart voter, is a bunch of people who want to unionize Walmart and it raise prices at Walmart so that you don't get any value going there.
What's standing in your way are liberal Democrats who want to force you to go to government, take a look at people who live off the government, Walmart voter, and tell me if you want to join them.
Because you can.
It's very easy.
Just quit your job, apply for unemployment, and live off the government.
You can get 24 grand a year.
You can do it, you can do it right now, but you want more than that.
So we as conservatives need to tell every American.
You have what it takes.
We believe in you.
We have all the faith and confidence in the world in you.
We want to help get obstacles and boulders out of your way.
We want to make sure that all the opportunity that you see people around you accessing, you can too.
There's no reason you can't.
Now that's not a policy.
It's a philosophy.
Now, if you want to articulate or write a policy for it from the government, go ahead, but I don't think it takes it.
It takes a leader motivating and inspiring people and telling them how good they can be, telling them how much better and more they have in them than they know, because they're being told by others they don't have enough and they don't have anything.
They don't have what it takes.
The Democrat and the liberal look at these people with contempt.
The more independent you are, the more able you are to provide for yourself and to secure your own happiness and economic security, the greater threat you are to Democrats.
They can't control you.
So I don't know why we need to come up with a policy.
Using government to go get these voters, but rush but rush isn't the idea to win elections.
Well, let me ask you a question.
Let's say that your 15 or 16-year-old walks into the room and tells you that your parent, you're you're you're you're the parent, and a 16 or 17-year-old tells you, you know, dad, mom, your rigid morality, that's not for us anymore.
We're not going to be bound by that kind of rigid morality.
It's not the way it was 50 years ago, Dad.
More than likely, the parent of today will say, Yeah, and I feel bad I've lost touch with you, son.
When I was a kid, my parents told me when I was wrong.
They knew I didn't know better.
I was too young.
I hadn't lived enough to know right from wrong in every instance.
So they tried to help me.
They tried to tell me when I was wrong.
And I still tried to get around them.
All kids do.
But my parents didn't get out of the way and say, oh, oh, okay, you want to do well, go right ahead.
They might have said one time, yo, go go ahead, but when you leave, don't come back.
If you want to live on your own like that under your rules, then fine, go get a job and leave my house.
I think my dad said that to me a couple times.
You want to live your own life, go go go provide for it.
Well, why should we treat voters who may want things that are destructive for themselves?
Why do we have to acquiesce and say, oh, you want the government to have a plan for you so that you have this, this, and oh, is that what you want from us Conservative.
Oh, we conservatives misunderstood.
Okay, that's what we'll give you.
Well, that's what people in our party are saying, and they are dead wrong.
And so I told people of speech, don't treat voters like kids.
Respect their intelligence.
Elected leaders are just that, they're leaders.
This isn't hard.
This is not hard.
I i it it's it's frustrating that so many of our people who have been elected Republicans and know the blueprint, for some reason now want to appear smarter and holier than now and less um uh strident.
I'm not strident, I'm passionate.
I really I love this country so much, I love the American people so much.
I look at what's happened to me, and I you don't know how much I wish everybody could experience it.
I'm not like a Democrat elitist who thinks you're not capable of it, and you should be happy with the crumbs that you get.
I want this to be the greatest damn place on earth for ever.
And that requires great individuals.
Great individuals need freedom to become great, or sometimes so much oppression that they rebel against it and become great.
Regardless, we need greatness.
I'm a little long.
I've got to take a brief time out.
In the meantime, what was the caller from Mike Mike trying to call Scarl Scarborough back tomorrow and ask him for a list of agenda items that Obama's uh trying to advance that he supports uh that he hopes succeed.
National health care, national education, universal education, uh whatever it is, cap and trade, uh gasoline tax increases, income tax increase.
You ask him what of Obama's agenda he hopes succeeds.
Back in just a second.
Back to the phones to Bellevue, Washington.
This is Bill.
Great to have you, sir, on the EIB network.
Hello.
Rush, it's a an honor to have a few moments with you on the telephone as the uh fearless leader of our nation in the defense of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Thank you, sir, very much.
Well, and I have to comment that I'm following your lead, and I chose not to use a teleprompter.
Now, I'll get to the point quickly.
Six and a half years ago, give or take a little, this nation was recovering from 9-11.
The pain was still throbbing when the relentless grumbeat of a tax and vilification against our president George W. Bush at that time, not simply his policies, but himself and his family commenced, and it continued endlessly until the great immaculation of our new president.
And I gave thanks that at least that was over.
But it isn't.
Today they've commenced attacking you for expressing your belief.
Commenced.
Yeah.
Commenced they didn't start today, old buddy O'Pell.
Yeah, a point well made, but it's clear that the uproar will get louder and louder and louder at you for daring to wish that to hope.
That is why, sir, I have ratcheted it up today.
Is he unlike the elected Republicans in Washington, or the so-called Republicans at the Republican National Committee, I am not going to cut and run.
Now I know I've got a different job than they do.
I'm just an entertainer.
I have 20 million listeners because I do song and dance routines here every day.
I don't have to go through the hard process of getting votes.
And I don't have to do the sausage making that is policy, and I don't have to work with Democrats on Capitol Hill.
No, all I have to do is get vilified by them, which to me is a badge of honor.
But let me expand on this failure business.
If the media wants to continue to ratchet this up, and if if Rahm Emanuel wants to continue to try to mischaracterize it for the purposes of driving a wedge between the Republican Party and me and conservatism and the American people, I welcome it.
Because here's today's edition of I Want Him to Fail.
The person who is at the moment risking the failure of the United States of America is indeed the President Barack Obama.
The stock market is now below 7,000.
It is plummeting.
People are losing jobs by the day.
People are losing their savings, their 401ks, their college funds for their children.
There's not one bit of good economic news.
The stock market is down 2,800 points since Barack Obama was elected.
There has not been one step, including using the bully pulpit to inspire and motivate people, taken by this president.
Failure is happening while he sits around and watches it, and he's not unhappy about it.
And let me say that again clearly.
If there is anybody who is engendering the failure of America as we have known it, while it happens in front of our eyes, it is President Obama.
It's something he needs for the rest of his agenda.
Fastest three hours in media, two of them in the can.
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